Saturday, May 31, 2008

Here are the other four Jacobean applique' blocks I have done. I do not understand why two of the photos uploaded sideways, nor do I know what to do to get them turned the right way. Maybe if someone knows they can tell me! I sure would appreciate it!

Daughter T and I have spent the afternoon watching lifetime movies and doing laundry. Hubby was at work and son K was at a party. I've also been talking to my best friend throughout the day as she is in her 2nd day of driving to Minnesota. It is a long way from Alabama to Minnesota! She said she will be so glad to get out of that truck for good! She should be there by now. I talked to her last about an hour and a half ago and she said they had about a hundred miles left to go!

Above are some baby booties I crocheted for a lady who works with the same company as I do. Some friends and family are having her a baby shower tomorrow to which I have been invited. I also bought her a pack of 5 onesies to go with the booties. In case some don't know what onesies are they are little teeshirts that come down long enough to snap between the legs. Nice and cool for summer and easy to handle. I sure hope she likes them. I loved them for my babies.
These are 2 out of 6 Jacobean applique' blocks I have made. I ironed them all today and my best friend thought I was nuts ironing blocks in this heat! It is a scorcher today! We have the AC going but it seems to do little good for this 48 year old menopausal woman! One day I need to get some more blocks done to add to these and make a quilt! I did all these using needle turn
applique'. I just love it!

This is my oldest daughter's (A) cat, Apollo. He is about 7 years old now. If you look at his eyes you can tell that he is blind in his right eye. He injured it several years ago.This cat has really used just about all his nine lives! When we got him he was about 2 months old and a very nervous cat, having been abused by his previous owner. He finally learned that we weren't going to hurt him and we loved him and he got better. But he is still a little nervous and won't let just anybody pick him up.He especially loves daughter A and he is her baby. She is 20 now and in college. When she left for college he would wonder into her room looking for her. We had always lived in the same house from the day we got him. Then a few months after daughter A went away to college we moved across town to a house I inherited from my mother. We took Apollo and Lily (my 17 year old dauughter's (T) cat) with us. They were upset at first, but then they seemed to be adjusting. But after about a week Apollo disappeared. After a couple days I rode by our old house and there sat Apollo in our old driveway! I couldn't believe he had made it all the way across town! We live in a small town, but he had to cross two major roads!I parked, got out and took him back home. He stayed a few days and then went back to the old house again! We talked to everyone in the neighborhood about him and discovered there were a few older ladies who were feeding him. No one could catch him and take him home with them. We kept bring him back to our new home and he kept going back to the old one! Daughter A came home for Christmas 2006 and she kept going back to the old house and finally we found Apollo and she brought him home. Well, he stayed as long as she was there and then a few days after she went back to college he left again! We figured he wasn't going to make it this time and we just decided to let him alone. We still kept riding by the old house sometimes but never saw him. Someone new bought the house and moved into it. Then when daughter A came home for Christmas of 2007 she and daughter T were driving through the old neighborhood to go to a friends house and saw Apollo. It was dark out and they couldn't get him to come to them. The next day they went back and daughter A got him to come to her and brought him home. He looked pretty rough. He had been living outside for a year now! He was really nervous but after a while he was ok. You could tell he was really happy to see daughter A! She stayed home from school for the whole winter break this time, which was 6 weeks. We were so worried that Apollo would leave again after she left, but he didn't! He has been here ever since. I guess he finally realized this was home! Or maybe he feels he is too old to walk all the way across town again! You can tell he has a harder time jumping then he did. I also think that he was looking for daughter A every time he went back to the old house. Maybe with new people living there he realized we would not be back and with daughter A here for so long over Christmas he realized this is where she lives. Whatever the reason we are just so glad that he is here to stay! He is the most loving cat we have. He loves to lay beside you and be scratched and petted. You can see daughter A in the above picture loving him right after she brought him back home at Christmas! Like I said, this cat definitely used his NINE LIVES!!!!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

This is me and my best friend. We have been best friends for the past 11 years. It seems like a lifetime. She has been there for me through so many heartaches and so many happy times. I have been there for her through all her heartaches and her happy times. We talk on the phone to each other at least 10 times or more a day! Now she is moving to Minnesota. I am happy for her. She reconnected with her childhood sweetheart, her very first boyfriend! And they got married in March. She waited until her daughter got out of school this week to move to Minnesota. She left this morning. My daughter and I went over to tell them goodbye yesterday after I got off work. It took a lot for me not to break down and cry. When I got home I cried. I know that we will still talk on the phone all the time, but it is so upsetting knowing she is not just down the road. Since we met we have always lived very close to each other. To begin with she lived directly across from me in an apartment complex. When she moved into a house I rented the house across the street! Then she bought a house and I moved into one I inherited from my mother. Even then we lived less than a mile apart. I only want the best for her, but I sure am gonna miss her!
Above is the truck she rented. They told her it would hold all her household. Well, she had to go back and rent a trailer to pull behind it! And still there were a few things she had to leave behind. One there important thing she had to leave was her son. He is 18 now and just graduated high school. She didn't want to have to leave him, but he didn't want to go. I just talked to her and she said she cried and cried this morning leaving him. I know it was hard.

This is my DD's cat, Lily. Lily loves to get into any kind of box or container she sees! Size doesn't matter! She will squeeze herself into it somehow! And if she can't get into it at all she will just lay her head in it! She is so funny!
Doesn't she look so contented here? She is getting older and so she just lays around all day. See how fat she is! She used to run around outside all the time and so stayed slim. Now when you see her outside she is usually laying on the porch or in the sun!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

This is my new way of keeping track of what fabric I have. I have my fabric in small clear totes. I labeled each tote with a number. I then cut a small swatch off each fabric in that tote. I then glued these swatches to large index cards with the box number at the top of the card and put them in numerical order in a tin box. No more hunting through each tote looking for a particular fabric!Close up of one of the index cards. My daughter told me I was too organized! I told her I had to be! The other day I was looking for a piece of fabric to line a crocheted bag I made for my cousin. She is crazy about Elvis and I knew I had some leftover Elvis fabric from a quilt I had made my daughter. But of course I could not find it. This was before I did my organization. So I went to Wal-Mart and bought more Elvis fabric! Of course I found what I already had as I was organizing! Now to just keep it organized. It's easy pulling fabric out of the totes, but sometimes it doesn't get put back so easily!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

I went by a yard sale not for from my house on Friday. I got this wonderful doily for only one dollar! I knew the lady who had lived in the house where the sale was taking place. She is now in a nursing home and her daughter was getting rid of some of her things. I think it is so sad. The lady did beautiful cross-stitch. When I had been to her home a couple times with my mother-in-law some years ago she had these huge georgous cross-stitched angels framed and hanging all over her house! They told me that the family was keeping all of those. I don't blame them I would keep them, too if they were done by a member of my family.I also got this wonderful glove there. I only paid fifty cents for it. You can't really tell from the picture, but it is of a sheer black organza. They thought I was crazy to just buy one glove. But I have seen some really neat needle work collages done with old gloves. My daughter put it on yesterday and just loved it! She said I should have gotten both gloves. But one of them had something all over the top of it.

I finished the name I was crocheting for my friend last night! Hurray! I uploaded this photo and even though the picture was the long way in my computer files so that you could read the name, when I uploaded it to this blog it turned upright and I cannot figure out how to turn it back the right way. Oh well. I guess everybody can still tell what the name is!

Friday, May 23, 2008

I am so glad today is Friday! And my store will be closed on Monday for Memorial Day so that makes a long weekend for me!!! The kids get out of school Monday for the holiday, also, then have to go back for three days and then they are out for the summer. You would think the school could have worked it out so they wrapped up this week. But you know they have to attend a certain number of days. And they are making the school years longer and longer. The kids will only be out for the summer for a little over two months. A few years ago the summer vacation lasted for three months.
I've got one daughter, Tara, who will be a senior next year. And my son, Keith, will be going to high school and starting the 9Th grade. My oldest daughter, Amber, just finished her second year of college! Time sure flies!
We had to go to the school last night for an awards ceremony. Mostly it was the present seniors getting awarded scholarships, but then at the end they called the ones from each grade up who had a 4.0 average. My Tara was in that group. I was so proud of her! I am proud of all my kids. Guess that is normal for all moms!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

I have been crocheting names for people for some time now. I have just started on a name for a friend of mine to give as a gift. This picture shows the beginning of it. It usually doesn't take me very long to make a name.This is the name layed out. The name will be IVEY. I will post more photos as I progress on it. I should have already finished it, but I seem to want to spend more time reading peoples blogs or reading my Karen Kingsbury book then I do crocheting!This is a little Japanese bag that I made. I have made several of these to sell and find they are the perfect size to put my crochet thread in so it is easy to carry with me wherever I go. I always take my handwork with me because I cannot stand to be sitting somewhere waiting on something and not have something there to do with my hands. You know, like the doctors office or waiting for kids at school and such.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

I really got into making ATC cards for awhile. I still think they are really neat and will probably make some more in the not too distant future. I just got overload on them and had to stop for a while. Here are some of my favorites. Of course my profile picture is one I did of myself. It is a picture of me when I was a little over a year old.This one is my brother, Freddy, when he was a little boy. He is two years older than me and as you can probably tell he loves Alabama football! I sent it to him and it is now on his bulletin board in his office at the restaurant he owns. This one is of my brother, George and his dog. I have always thought this was the cutest picture and so had to do an ATC using it. George died when he was only 13 years old way back in 1967. I was very young and so do not remember a lot about him. But we do have our pictures to remind us. This is my beautiful mama when she was in high school. I just love the way this turned out and only wish I had been making these before she died. I know she would have loved this! Sadly she died almost three years ago of cancer. This is my all time favorite ATC! This is a Bible that I received from my aunt and uncle way back in 1973. I used it so much that the cover just wore away. It has a zipper around three sides to open and close it. I designed this cover for it. There is jewelry on it from my childhood and beads from two old necklaces that my father gave me when I was very young. The long gold chain on the right side is the Ten Commandments that I received when I was about 5 years old in my Sunday School Class. The little beads that have the name Dumas on them were part of my baby bracelet that they put on my wrist in the hospital when I was born. The cross stitched piece that says Life is fragile Handle with Prayer is a kit I received from my brother many years ago and did. This Bible and cover are very special to me as they hold a lifetime of memories. When I was going through my mama's things after she died I found this Valentine I had embroidered for her. It was so long ago that I cannot even remember doing it! It really means a lot that she kept it all these years. My mama and I always had a very close bond. I was the youngest of 4 children and the only girl. I did not marry till I was 26 years old and stayed home and took care of my mama till then. I still took care of her even after I married. I really miss her a lot. I made the this bonnet and the booties that follow for a lady at my church who just gave birth to a little baby girl. I found the pattern on the Internet and thought they were so cute! They were a lot of fun to make. They worked up really quickly. This is a side view of the bonnet. This is a back view of the bonnet. And these are the booties. I can't wait to see them on that sweet baby!

Close up of our house.Close up of pine trees.Close up of store that was 5 miles down the road that we went to.Close up of wisteria bush. I love wisteria bushes. They smell great!
Close up of rose bush. My mama loved roses, especially red roses. So my piece would not be complete without a rose bush!

I decided that my first post to this blog should be a wall hanging that I designed and made to represent a very special memory of my childhood. I hand appliqued, hand embroidered, and hand quilted this wall hanging.

When I was about 8 years old we lived out in the country. Not many cars passed along our road. One day my cousin and I decided we wanted to make some money. So we set up a table beside the road. The only thing we could find to sell were crackers and pecans! We only had one customer that day and that was my oldest brother, Keith (the thin boy). My cousin (the blonde) and me (the brunette) were so excited.

My brother was 16 years old at the time and so very sweet. Not only did he buy our crackers and pecans, but he took us up the road to this little store that was there to buy candy with our money. We rode there in the old blue truck.

My brother died at the age of 24 when I was just 16. He was such a kind and loving person and I miss him terribly.

The tree in the picture represents a Chinaberry tree that was by our house that we loved to play in and have Chinaberry fights by throwing the little hard green berries at each other. Boy, did they hurt!!

The little red flowers along the side of the road are clover. There really was no clover on our road, but I put it there in memory of another story. My mama loved to tell the story of how she was over at my aunts house when we all arrived home from school on the bus. My two girl cousins were all excited and telling my mama and aunt that there was strawberries along side the road and they needed to hurry up and go pick them. My mama knew exactly where they were talking about and told them that it was not strawberries, but clover! My cousins kept insisting it was strawberries and so finally we all got into the car and Mama took us to where they were at so she could show my cousins it really was clover! That clover still grows in the same spot and everytime I pass there when it is in bloom I remember this story.

Favorite Bible Verse:

About Me

I am a Christian mother of 3 beautiful children. I have been doing handwork of some kind since I was 9 years old. My mother taught me to embroidery then. I love all kinds of handwork and have done a little of just about everything.